Children with special needs in England will keep current support, minister says

Georgia Gould reassures parents that no child will be asked to leave school or have levels of assistance removed

Children with special needs will not lose their places at special schools or current levels of assistance, an education minister has told parents anxious that the government would strip away their child’s support.

Facing questions at an online forum, part of the Department for Education’s (DfE) “national conversation” on changing special needs provision in England, Georgia Gould said: “No child is going to be asked to leave the school that they’re in. So I just want to give that reassurance.”

Questions about school places and the future of education, health and care plans (EHCPs) – the legal agreements supporting pupils with special needs – came up repeatedly during the nearly two months of discussions, town halls and roundtables Gould has attended as the minister leading the government’s controversial overhaul of special educational needs and disabilities (Send) provision.

In an interview with the Guardian, Gould said she had met parents who had personally paid £30,000 to get support under the current system, as one of many families battling with local authorities to obtain an EHCP.

“I don’t blame any parent who’s fighting for their child, I would do the same. What we need to do is make sure that support is in place earlier, in a really clear way,” Gould said.

The government’s plan, according to Gould, is simple: mainstream schools will have the resources to make specialist support readily available, so children will get help rapidly and many families will not need an EHCP.

Groups such as the Disabled Children’s Partnership accept that early intervention and more inclusive mainstream schools could shrink the numbers seeking EHCPs. But there are also fears that a need to cut costs and limit the right to legal redress will further curtail the entitlements of children with special needs, a concern voiced by sceptical attendees at every stop on the DfE’s circuit.

At one national online forum, a parent named Leyla asked: “What if it doesn’t work? What about the children with special needs who can’t adapt to mainstream schools? Will they lose access to special schools?”

Gould said: “To reassure Leyla and anyone who has that concern, we still see a really important place for special schools,” saying that the government planned £3bn of capital funding for mainstream units and special schools, as well as extra training for teachers and other school staff.

“There are some children who need that specialist provision. I’ve seen extraordinary work within special schools and we want a system that works together so mainstream schools are learning from the best that happens in special schools and children are in the right place for their education.”

Since her appointment as schools minister last year, Gould has been given the task of shaping the changes in the schools white paper to be published later this month, crisscrossing England for town halls in places such as Darlington, Skegness and Bristol, as well as national online forums. The DfE says it has hosted more than 100 “listening” events since the Send overhaul began.

Gould said what she had heard reinforced what she learned as a councillor and leader of Camden council, before being elected to parliament in 2024, that Send provision had rapidly become an urgent national priority.

After visiting a specialist unit at Maiden Erlegh secondary school in Wokingham, Berkshire, Gould said she understood many parents were afraid of losing the rights they get from an EHCP.

“I hear the fear all the time about legal rights. Parents will say to me, ‘We fought so hard for some support’, and they’re really scared about that being taken away,” Gould said.

“We’ve been really clear throughout that there will always be a legal right to additional support. I know it’s frustrating but we want to set out the full package together, we’re not setting out the individual elements of it. All I can say is, I’ve very much heard what parents are telling me, and this is about putting more support in earlier, not taking support away.

“That’s what parents say as well, that they want support earlier but they want to be assured. So many parents will say: I think my child can thrive in mainstream education but how can I be sure that they are going to get that provision? What’s the accountability around that? That’s the challenge that parents give me, and that’s one of the big conversations we’re having.”

The white paper is likely to allow children and young people with existing EHCPs to retain them for as long as they are happy, including the right to appeal to a specialist Send tribunal. A long transition is expected, with the DfE speaking of “decade-long reform”, to build up capacity in mainstream schools, before many of the major changes kick in. One concern for parents of younger children is that they may not be covered by Gould’s guarantee by the time they need it.

More immediately, schools will get greater resources and budgets to accommodate more children with special needs. That will include specialist units within every mainstream secondary school, including dedicated staff and buildings – giving parents more options, taking the strain off special schools and in theory reducing the need for EHCPs. Legal redress will still be available, including through tribunals and other avenues, with discussions continuing over other ways of putting support on a statutory footing.

About 460,000 school-age children have EHCPs, according to the most recent data, and just under half of those are already in mainstream schools. The significant growth in recent years, both in cost and numbers, has been in pupils with EHCPs going to private special schools, where fees cost councils £60,000 a year on average.

A key aim is that a formal diagnosis – for conditions such as autism, language difficulties or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder – should not be a prerequisite for pupils receiving additional support or “reasonable adjustments” to learn alongside their peers.

“Somebody said: what you’re describing sounds like Nirvana but it’s a million miles away from our experience in the system now, and we don’t have a lot of trust that you can change it,” Gould told a forum at the River academy in Reading.

“And I think it’s very important to acknowledge where things aren’t working and where people have had really bad experiences, and that this is not going to change overnight, it’s something that we’re going to have to build together.”